Homewards
by kitty1
Summary: Abby confronts her past, Maggie confronts Abby confronting her past. Written/set in Season Seven. Triangley shaped.
1. Default Chapter

"Homewards"   
Rating: Nice'n'clean.  
Category: Falls under A for the presence of an Angsting Abby  
Spoilers: Present Day Season 7.  
Disclaimer: I am but a mortal. These characters fortunes (misfortunes?) are at another slave drivers will and command... And it isn't as kinky as it sounds.  
Author Notes: Eeek. Yet another mother-daughter fiasco. Run with tail between legs if that's not your cup of mocha, otherwise, please don't hesitate to continue...:)   
  
Summary: Abby confronts her past, Maggie confronts Abby confronting her past.  
  
* * * *  
  
I am moved by fancies that are curled  
Around these images, and they cling:  
The notion of some infinitely gentle  
Infinitely suffering thing.  
--T. S. Eliot  
  
* * * *  
  
Frustration, noun: To be unwanted, and, then, finally, to be needed.  
  
* * * *  
  
Her mother had been amazing.   
  
She had this way, of pulling rays of hope out from thin air, thin strips of nightmares, and all of a sudden the world wasn't such an evil, lonely, hateful place.   
  
She sees pictures of herself, from then, in her arms, when she was three, four. Her mother's face pressed against her cheek, arms snuggled around her, clinging to her, for a million selfish and unselfish reasons, clinging to her because she loved her and she had been that ray of hope for her mother. Being a ray of hope entails a lot of responsibilities. And lots of lonely, exhausted nights, spent up late offering words of reassurance and comfort when you didn't believe in them. Making sure that no, the electric boards weren't going to cut all the supplies, that yes, they would have hot water for the next few weeks, and that it was OK, everything was going to be OK.  
  
Even if she knew, even if Abby knew that it wouldn't be.  
  
She wrote to her this morning. Her mom. Her Maggie. Said some really nice things, and other things that made her want to scream and stamp her feet and make a scene, and then she'd say some really nice things again. It's her mother's charm. The yin and yang she combines only too potently.  
  
She wants to see her.   
  
Standing by her open locker, she reads it for perhaps the millionth time within the hour, searching for something, something tangible, something that she can let herself believe, something to tell her that it's going to be OK. All she finds are empty promises and kissy kissy faces.   
  
She hears voices and the note crumples in her hands, becoming a wad of second thoughts.  
  
"Just be patient, and they shall come and seek you." Dave's telling Carter as the door falls shut behind them.  
  
Carter turns to grin at him questioningly. "What is that? Zen and the Art of Dating?"  
  
Dave gives him a wise eyebrow grin in return. "Oh no. This is the Tao of Dave."  
  
Carter laughs. "The Tao of Dave?"  
  
His eyes flash with playful-seriousness. "Don't mock the Tao Carter."  
  
Carter shakes his head and grins, arms raised passively. "Was doing no such thing."  
  
Dave continues. "-Only last night, there were these three ladies at this bar that I went to and they had absolutely no trouble with _this_ Tao."  
  
Carter chuckles lightly to himself and watches the other man flop into a couch in the corner of the room. "How do you manage to walk Dave?"  
  
Dave smiles. "Acquired talent. Years of practice. Play nice and some day I might even teach you."  
  
"Dave handing out dating advice? Isn't that like 'the blind, leading the blind'?" She says, and they both turn to notice her, Carter smirking at her comment, Dave playing the wounded puppy.  
  
She sighs and turns to share her grin with Carter; mocking Dave has become a pet hobby of theirs. They were considering starting a club. Make Weaver a residing President, based on her truly un-rivaled ability to Mock Dave.   
  
She gives her locker another long, hearty stare, flicking through layers of unread journals and partially digested sandwiches –and Jesus, just what the hell did that used to be? Cringing, and promising herself to bring in some high strength bleach and deodorizer sometime this century, she slams the locker shut and turns to go.  
  
Dave and Carter are both busy with their respective duties as residents. Dave's version of this anyway, which seems to involve lots of lying back on sofas with the latest issue of Rolling Stone on hand. She guessed that his Playboy was otherwise occupied.  
  
She sighs and with bag over left shoulder moves to leave. She's several feet away from the door, when the feel of the crumpled paper sucks her back into reality. She stares at it for a few solid seconds, debating and doubting its existence. There's a dull ache in her chest. Right where her heart should be. She feels tears rise. It's involuntary. A reflex that she's developed over the years.   
  
"Um, Carter...you free for a minute?" She turns to face him as she says this, one hand on the door, the other clutching at this wad of childhood traumas.  
  
He looks up at her, the playful look in his eyes vanishing as they meet hers. He looks back down at the coffee machine with longing, and then back at her. Picking up his jacket, he nods. "Sure Abby."  
  
They make a pit stop at Doc McGoos, grabbing two cups of hot coffee and then walking out in to what the weathermen would have them believe is spring. It's cold, and she tucks her hands under her armpits for temporary relief.  
  
They stand, side by side, on the corner of McGoos for a while. Watching cars honk and roar and dissolve into the distance. Listening to the sound of emergencies and Volvos and people blur past them, living and breathing and moving along and then away. This is their form of meditation, their little escapism. Becoming One with rush hour traffic. Hypnotized by the normalness of it all.  
  
"I, um, I received this this morning," and the crumpled sheet of paper with curly handwriting and kissy faces and loving invitations is transferred over to him. He looks up at her, seeking an explanation and when none is given smoothes the top out and begins to read.  
  
This makes her feel silly. How she can still manage to be so affected by her. It's a simple mother-daughter letter. With questions of Meeting The Right One and When Am I Going To Be A Grand Mother and Did You Wash Behind Your Ears type nonsense. It's not like there are family secrets scrawled in between the lines.  
  
It's just a simple letter.  
  
From the most complicated person she knows.  
  
He's looking back up at her. "So you don't want to go?"  
  
She takes in a breath of cold air and sighs. The feeling of wanting to stamp her feet surfaces. "I...I don't know. Why now? I mean maybe she wants something from me, maybe she needs some money or some place to stay or someone to come and rescue her from whatever it is that she's managed to get herself into. Nothing for months and months and now this? It's just typical of her. She wants something from me Carter."  
  
He purses his lips and shrugs, handing her back the note. "Sounds like she _wants_ to see you."  
  
She groans and makes a fast motion with her hand. "See, this is exactly how my mother works. Makes it sound as though I've been the one avoiding her, running from her, when she has never given me any reason to trust or believe her."  
  
Her eyes singe with anger, and years of frustration, and she has to look away.   
  
She hates how Maggie can still affect her.  
  
He lets the traffic consume them for a while, and she closes her eyes, swallowing her anger and her hurt and her tears. She sighs and bites at her lip.  
  
"I don't think I can do this again Carter. I'm so tired of rescuing her or babying her or letting her get to me. I don't have the strength to do this again."  
  
She can hear him shift besides her, his eyes dancing from the wheels of moving vehicles and then back to hers. "So what did you need me for? Sounds like you're pretty set."  
  
She shifts her gaze from each of his eyes; that question attacking her and her whole train of thought crumbles. She's tempted to tell him to go away, that he's right, why does she need him, just out of spite of his honesty. Honesty has a tendency to burn her. And she's still licking too many old ones.  
  
She looks away, when his lips tilt up in a sincere smile. Her hands making a mess of her hair. "I don't know Carter. I guess I wanted you to tell me to go to her, I wanted you to give me a list of reasons to go and then...then I could compare it with my own list of reasons not to go. I don't know Carter. I don't know why."  
  
He nods, and there's more lip pursing, thoughts buzzing across his irises. He shifts his gaze back to something else, head tilting up to observe sky and then back to traffic, the silence of vehicles and life surrounding them, drowning them.  
  
She joins his stare, raising coffee cup to mouth and then swallowing. All the caffeine feeding her deprived and tired neurons. The heat warming her lips and her mouth, her hands encircling the Styrofoam, seeking more warm coffee comfort.  
  
"So...she's your mother. That's one reason to go."   
  
She nods as if accepting this with a pinch of salt. "Genetically."  
  
"She sounds as though she's taking her medication, that she's not doing so bad. That's another reason."  
  
She gives a soft snort of disbelief, eyes rolling. "I'll have to see that one to believe it."   
  
He thinks again. "And thirdly..." he trails off, and his eyes return to hers, as he takes a tentative sip of his coffee, "I think that maybe you need this more than you think you do... That maybe you have more than enough strength. I think that maybe this is exactly what you need."  
  
He says, having the definition of "closure" down pat.  
  
And she's again tempted to tell him to go. Tell him that she needs to think. Tell him that she needs to go away and think and deride all his presumptions about her and her life. Pull them apart into caricatures just so that the truth behind them can lose itself in their surreal ness.  
  
She hates that he could be right. Maybe she does need this. And she hates that. She hates that she needs anything.  
  
She sighs and presses the coffee cup against her lips as she watches him. Filing him under "H" for "mysteries of her life."   
  
She suddenly has a vision of herself walking up her front doorsteps, baggage falling beneath her as her mother's hands come up and pull her against her, and they become just another mother-daughter hugging. Her mother showing her things, her new job, her new apartment, the new designs she's managed to scrawl out for bridesmaid dresses for that When Abby, When Abby Wedding of hers that she's already gotten all scripted out in her head. And then they'll laugh over old photos, watching favourite old movies. Just another mother-daughter.  
  
"Weaver..."  
  
He looks back at her, and shakes his head, as if flicking through a list of excuses that he has stashed away for this very type of situation. She wouldn't doubt it. He's like a boy scout that way. Always prepared.   
  
"Your...gamma...your gamma just passed away. Has your gamma passed away yet?"  
  
She shakes her head with a smile. "I'm saving that one."  
  
He purses his lips again. "Grandfather?"  
  
She sighs and grins. She feels as though she's time warped right back into ninth grade. Sneaking notes across desks and home rooms, asking for believable reasons as to why you just missed two weeks of algebra and only algebra. A string of relatives suddenly having tragic accidents and meetings with ecoli.   
  
And then she's speaking again, her voice determined and gritty. Like she's been planning and waiting to do this her whole life, and suddenly, hey presto, a decent excuse emerges, and she's liberated to do just that, only finding that she doesn't even know where to begin.  
  
"Will...will you come with me?" She asks and then looks away.  
  
He looks up from his coffee sharply, their eyes holding. "You really need to do this yourself Abby."  
  
Something else to file away in that cabinet of hers.   
  
"Like I want to spend time alone with the woman who was responsible for the destruction of my family. You owe it to me to come, Carter." It comes out light hearted, but she's being too honest. She doesn't want to do this alone. She wants to do this, and she doesn't want for it to be alone. She does too many things alone, she's alone too many times, and she doesn't need this to be one of them.  
  
He turns to tilt a semi-apologetic smile at her. "I...I think it would be good for you --to get a break from this place, a break from everyone here... But give me a phone call when you get there, tell me how things are going, OK?"  
  
She nods, and shakes her head. Surrendering to this. Wondering just how on earth he managed to talk her in to doing it. Conveniently forgetting any of the parts that she just played.  
  
* * * *  
  
Frustration, noun: Starved...only to be given a fleeting memory of a feast.  
  
* * * *  
  
Weaver can be too trusting sometimes.  
  
My grandfather on my father's side had a turn for the worse, she said, It's looking pretty bad, she said, Would it be asking for too much, she said.  
  
If she suspected anything, she didn't show it.   
  
Abby was grateful for that.  
  
The plane leaves in four hours, a return trip to bury skeletons and organize Peace Talks, between the last person that she can be peaceful with, all underway.   
  
Luka's slouching against the hallway, and she can see him wanting to say something, his eyes flickering from her travel case, back up to her lips and then her eyes.   
  
It's three days. Only three days.  
  
"So...um, don't do anything I wouldn't do...I'll miss you." And the words come out empty, their meaning dissolved in the search for their meaning.  
  
He smiles bittersweetly, and walks up to her, suddenly, and she's taken by surprise as he pulls her against him in an intimate way that he doesn't do every day, his male odor, his male aura enveloping her, and she sinks into him, his chest, his warmth. Finding protection from the big bad world.  
  
And then, like that, like seeing eclipses and experiencing the collapse of the Berlin Wall, it's over, and her skin is left with the memory of his warmth. He's standing away from her, a foot of emptiness dividing them, and she wonders if it's a permanent distance, if it's the distance of walls built up by decades of pain and hurt and loneliness. If there's a footbridge that she might some day find, to cross it.  
  
"Are you sure you don't want me to come?" He says, their eyes flickering and dancing from one another.  
  
She shakes her head gently, "No. No. I...I think I have to do this."  
  
He understands, and his head dips up and down by miniscule degrees to demonstrate this.  
  
Quickly going through a list of the things that she needs, tapping back pockets for Visas and Legal Documents, looking for that one forgotten thing that she can spend the next two decades searching for fruitlessly.  
  
Everything's where everything should be.  
  
With one more smile, and a flick of her hand, she's just a memory of warmth in his front room.  
  
* * * *  
  
Planes didn't scare her.  
  
The fear of being on that one plane out of however many billion that for whatever reason falls out of the sky in a ball of flames and screaming passengers doesn't even trespass her thoughts.   
  
Her hands clutch at the hand rests, and she leans back against her seat, the smell of other previous too-sweaty passengers who had made their knuckles whiten with the power of their minds submerging her. She takes those fabled deep breaths that supposedly cleanse and calm and rationalize.   
  
She almost hyperventilates.  
  
There's a Walt Disney movie sending animal shaped images across every other passenger's blank faces. Kids play tic-tac-toe some seats behind her. Men flirt and women laugh. Stewardesses standing around looking ready and prepared to hand out warm towels during apocalypses and the stuff that comes before.   
  
She has an oxygen mask within arms reach and a plastic cardboard of the 101 Calm Things To Do During an Emergency folded neatly in the pocket of the seat in front.  
  
No advice on how to track down the past and beat it into submission, no advice or cute diagrams on how to let go and move on from all those other small apocalypses that everyone takes part in every day of their lives.  
  
She takes another deep breath.  
  
Her fingers hungrily tapping away at the armrest for a cigarette, a muscle relaxant, a shot gun to aim right into Mickey Mouse's bowtie because if they see one more fairytale ending they're going to explode.   
  
They grudgingly settle on flicking through the obligatory issue of Pretty Women Wearing Too Tiny Pantsuits and Then Maybe a Crossword or Two About The Great Old States of America.  
  
There's static and then the air fills with the captain's deep, resonant voice, reminding them of their seatbelts and their destinations and to have a safe journey home, and there's a shifting as the passengers move to resist the effects of gravity.  
  
Florida's suddenly just outside her window. Dark smudges suddenly gaining front doors and double glazed windows. The landscape becoming a city becoming an airport becoming the place where she grew up.  
  
And Abby taps away at her armrest, wishing she had the ability to sublimate.  
  
* * * *  
  
Frustration, noun: Home and miles and miles away.  
  
* * * *  
  
"No, I just arrived."  
  
Her hands trail up and down the phone receiver, that need for nicotine beckoning them all too easily and seductively. She thinks she has memorized every licensed and able K-Mart on the taxi drive over there.  
  
She questions all those statistics that made her give up.   
  
Did you know that non-smokers die every day?  
  
She bets that it's been medically proven, dying with anticipation.  
  
There's a rustled gap at the other end of the line. "So...?"  
  
She sighs. "So...I called the number that she left with me, and I uh, left a message on her machine."  
  
"...Abby." He sighs, sounding like a disappointed father.  
  
She shrugs, a gesture wasted in the empty room. "If she wants to talk to me then she can give me a call. I want to give her some time to prepare before she sees me. So that she quickly find a job and convince me of this wonderful "transformation" she's undergone."  
  
If he were in the room, she would imagine him giving her an eyebrow raise, as though asking for the real, actual, reason. But he isn't and so can't and moves on. "...How's it like, in Florida?"  
  
It's comforting, his voice, the familiar sound of a friendly voice from her future, transported over a dozen cable wires and satellites into her past. "Oh it's OK." She grins. "It's been sunny non-stop since I arrived, everyone walks around in tiny bikinis and next to nothing else. How's Chicago?"  
  
She can hear him smile dryly. "Chicago's great, as always. Just one endless beach party. I think it's raining today. And then tomorrow and a lot of the next day also. Lots of nice weather when you get back though, so don't forget to do that," He pauses, and there's a shifting in the background sounds, a sudden silence.  
  
She smiles wryly, "It's just three days, and then I'll be right back to picking up bed pans and being everyone's favourite nurse."  
  
Carter pauses, and the sounds of her alone in a strange hotel bed with starched sheets and really stiff pillows and a window that doesn't drown out all the sounds of a night in Florida surround her, and she's back to wanting a cigarette.  
  
"Call me...if...call me, if you need to, OK?"  
  
She's smiling again. "Sure...thanks Carter...bye."  
  
"Bye Abby."   
  
And then there's the dial tone, and she's already finding her wallet and looking for the nearest sign of tobacco smoke and a Ben&Jerry's retailer.  
  
* * * *  
  
Frustration, noun: The not knowing, living with the unexpected, knowing to expect the unexpected.  
  
* * * *  
  
The rain was something unforeseen and all the newscasters were left looking humble and apologetic, ties being straightened and then straightened again.  
  
She continues to walk through it all, as it speeds towards the earth, striking cement and metal and running shrieking girls wearing next to nothing else. Walks through it all, like Moses parting the dead sea, only to have the laws of thermodynamics re-establish themselves, the water coming thundering back down to Earth in drops and drips and drops. Thick with anticipation; the prelude to a Noah's Flood.  
  
Her shirt sticks to her skin, the water binding them together, draining through her, and she can feel the new packet of cigarettes dissolving in her front pocket. She wouldn't doubt that this was God's own special way of having her remain nicotine free. Sending a storm over to the sunny state of Florida to disrupt any plans that she might have of getting to sleep that night.  
  
She throws a glance at her watch; swimming numbers inform her that it's almost eleven in the night. The streets around her are familiar. Backdrops to first kisses and games of hop scotch.  
  
She could find her way home from here without a second thought.   
  
An underwater trip down the backstreets of her childhood.  
  
In the years leading up to her mother's breakdown, she suffered from depression and found it hard to keep a worthwhile job. Her dad would have to work overtime to compensate, and when Abby would come home from school she would find her mother buried underneath a mountain of bed sheets, refusing to talk to anyone, Abby's brother and her seeking comfort in front of the TV or at friends houses, only understanding that they wanted to be a million miles away from that place they called home.  
  
And on the good days, on the days when her synapses and neurotransmitters would perform a manic one-eighty, all of this would be forgotten by their hunt for buried treasure in the living room, by the excitement in her mother's voice as they would run outside in the pouring rain, skidding through puddles and building whole Roman Empires out of mud.   
  
And then they would come home to find her, crying and screaming in her pajamas, and they were silent observers as their father would lower his voice, approaching her, cooing softly as you would to a petrified and dangerous animal, and this would provoke her to lash out in a fit of hysteria, her dad forced into locking them in a room until yet another world disaster had been averted.  
  
This became their routine for years.  
  
The dance they did.  
  
Looking back on it all, she understands why her father would want to just pick up and leave it all behind. Not content until at least five national states had been tossed between them. She wonders what her life would have been like should he have told her of his plans, had they made their escape together.  
  
She used to think that it was somehow all her fault. In that awkward, innocent way that most eight year olds do. That all those years of sneaking out chocolate cookies, and telling white lies, and swearing when no grown-ups were around to hear, that all those years had caught up with her, and this, her mother, her dad, this was all her fault. On some cosmic level this was retribution. This was fair.  
  
The rain was coming down thickly now, and she lifts the collar of her shirt up, beginning at a run to the relative desert of the hotel room.  
  
Her mother had left a message on her machine when she returned.   
  
Toweling her hair and stripping down and out of the soiled jeans and shirt, she pressed the blinking red button and listened as she made a hunt for dry clothes.  
  
"Abby? Abby?! This is your mother, call me right away!" Her voice practically shouted, continuing to leave a string of numbers.   
  
She froze, nailed to the bed.  
  
Another message: "Abby, where are you? Why haven't you called yet? Where are you? Where's my Abby? Call me right now!"  
  
She stares at the phone for maybe seconds, maybe lifetimes. Everything suddenly too cold and wet and real. Her head in her hands as she sits on the bleached sheets, her throat tightening, her mother's voice strangling her.  
  
She said she was on meds. She promised that she was on meds. The letter promised that she was taking the right meds. She couldn't have been manic. She was just happy. Happy to hear from her.  
  
Her resolve, all the courage that she had built up, faltering, shaking.  
  
She lets herself cry. She was alone and she could let herself cry. And with head in hands she waits.  
  
From her window the rain continued to fall. Water losing to the cement, and yet continuing on, undismayed, another water dance with the devil; waiting for the outcome to change.  
  
* * * * 


	2. Chapter 2

"Homewards" (2/3)  
Disclaimers included in chapter one.  
  
Okay, it's weird. Warning you. :D Um... I wrote it around when Witch Hunt aired in the US, so it was still L/A... but I threw in lots of A/C for good measure. ;)  
  
The whole thing was written before Sailing Away, even, so I thought that Florida was Abby's hometown. I was wrong. I apologise to all the pedantics, like me, for this. :)  
  
I forget why I've never posted it up here before... probably because I was incredibly insecure about what all one of you, who've already read this and told me to post it up (::waves at Jen::) would think. So, if you do, for whatever reason, enjoy reading this, please don't hesistate to say so. I'll do a dance that will put Michael Flatley's to shame. C'mon, you don't want the neighbours to miss that!  
* * * *  
  
"At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives,  
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,"  
  
"The Waste Land" T.S. Elliot  
  
* * * *  
  
Frustration, noun: Time only ever moves forwards... even if we don't.  
  
* * * *  
  
It's just gone seven in the morning and Abby's been awake since three.   
  
She watched infomercials until four fifteen and after she had began to get a pang for scissors that could actually cut through shoes, she switched it off and made her way to bed.   
  
Four twenty five had found her picking up medical journals that she had brought along as a last resort, should she ever get that bored or that insane, and she had flicked through them absently, attempting fascination at all things pus.  
  
Four thirty eight and she was staring at the phone. Willing it to ring, crinkling her forehead and giving a Bewitched nose twitch and then staring at it with resentment, she had cursed. Stupid, worthless, piece of crap.   
  
She could tell Luka that she wanted to hear his voice. Maybe she could get him to recite some mushy poem in Croatian to her. Dammit. She would have settled for the editorial of a magazine on the feeding habits of the Rare Bolbono Apes.  
  
Carter? Maybe he was just as awake as she was. Lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, feeling worthless and alone. She would really have been doing him a favor. Nothing selfish at all. She hung up when a sweet old lady answered and asked her who she was and what exactly did she want with the Carters' at four forty two in the morning. She was the Wrong Number.  
  
At five twenty two she had showered, dressed, applied and re-applied her make-up. Written up a shopping list that she knew would never see the light of day again. Went over several medical procedures in her head, going over all of the major muscles in the legs, the Periodic Table of Elements, the effects of tar on the lungs.  
  
She was on her fifth cup of coffee at five forty nine, the crumpled letter stretched out on the table in front of her. She analyzed it for significant meanings, for hidden relevancies, applying a million Freudian concepts to each full stop and dotted "i."  
  
Her mother wanted something. Her mother wanted money, a place to stay, the leading spotlight. Her mother wouldn't stop until she had more than enough of this something.  
  
No doubt Abby would be the one left with the weak foothold on sanity, her mother gone before any consequences could establish themselves. She would be the one left picking up the pieces, super gluing her life back together. Her mother's a cancer; her own personal melanoma. Arrives, refuses to be cured, plays dead for the longest of whiles, only to return again when she leasts needs it, teasing and playing with her until something gives way. Something inside her breaks or snaps.  
  
At nine minutes past six she had dismissed every conclusion that she had arrived at, and smiled at herself, for getting so easily worked up. She was there because Maggie had asked her to come, had promised her that things had changed, things were different now, and then signed it with too many loves and kisses. She was here because Carter had talked her into coming. And she back-tracked. No. Carter hadn't. He hadn't held a gun to her head as she had booked a flight, he hadn't packed her suitcases or carried her onto the plane kicking and screaming.   
  
And at eleven minutes past six in the morning, the epiphany arrived:  
  
She was here because *she* herself wanted to come.  
  
So now it was seven in the morning, and she had had a total of three hours and fifteen minutes sleep, five cups of coffee, half a tuna bagel and nineteen crackers, tabbed one phone call to room service, made another two calls to reception enquiring if her phone was working, and had one epiphany. Overall not a bad morning.  
  
Oh and how long will that last Abby? The skies due a collapsing any day now. Wouldn't want to be caught off guard when that happens do you Abby?  
  
Sighing and scrawling down her mother's address on a scrap of paper she shoved it into the pocket of her jacket with her keys, wallet, and the slushy remains of tobacco, and standing on the sidewalk she signaled for a taxi.  
  
She brought an umbrella. "Expect the unforseen." It was in her weather forecast.   
  
The air was light; the calm after the storm, relaxed, unburdened, spent. She fidgeted with her hands in the back seat of the cab, the lack of sleep and the excess caffeine making her hyper sensitive and nervously alert. She envisioned all those things that could go wrong. The screaming, the arguing, the blame, the guilt, the all too familiar silences. The fear that this was how it would ever be between them. Attack, defend, attack, defend. On stand-by. Guard up, armor on. Just waiting for World War --what was it now? twenty-three? –to break out at any second. Always ready. Always waiting.  
  
She realized she didn't have anything to say and fidgeted some more.  
  
The cab had stopped, and she turned to stare out of the window, half expecting to find her mother running along the street naked, singing Christmas carols. Half expecting to find herself pretending not to have any idea who this obviously insane person calling herself her mother was, only to have to wrap her up in a blanket and calmly take her home.  
  
Kids played in the grass in front of a neat row of bungalows. A group of adults stood and sat on a front porch, discussing and talking. Mothers being mothers with other mothers. Sharing recipes on raising perfectly mal-adjusted children and how to make perfectly crispy chocolate brownies, the eyes in the back of their heads keeping constant surveillance over their young. Stepping out, she paid her fare and then stood there, waiting for the right moment to just sneak up on her.  
  
She was about to go and hunt down a tobacconist when a familiar head popped out from behind the house, laundry basket in hand, and then stood to stare at her. Within minutes clean clothes lay scattered across the dewy ground, and she was grinning with her mother as her hands encircled her, and her name became a mantra.  
  
"Oh god, Abby! Abby! Abby you're here! Oh Abby!" Her mother's words were chocked with tears, and Abby returned the hold just as warmly and strongly. She was here because she wanted to be.  
  
Maggie loosened her grip, leaning back to stare at her, eyes swimming, and Abby noticed herself noticing that they weren't dilated; a symptom of mania. Maggie stroked her hair, gently confirming her existence.  
  
Abby grinned, "Hey mom." She could see her mother's eyes cloud over with emotion, and she smiled kindly, eyes darting back to the cozy looking bungalow. "This yours?"  
  
Maggie turned to look at the building, one arm still nestled against her daughter. "I only just got it a month or two ago. Finished decorating last week."  
  
Abby nodded, quietly taking it in. "It's...its nice."  
  
Maggie grinned with pride, and eagerly began to lead her daughter towards the front door. "Come inside, come inside, you have got to see the colour I painted my living room. Aquamarine blue. You loved that colour as a girl," she turned to flash one more grin at her, "I'm so glad you're here Abby."  
  
Abby nodded and shrugged a smile, following behind her as she unlocked the door. "Me too mom."  
  
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Frustration, noun: too much of anything, too little of everything.  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Aquamarine blue had been her favorite color ever since she could remember. She thinks it had something to do with mermaids and summer skies. She thinks. She can't stand the color now. Ever since having been subjected to wearing it almost ostentatiously for four months out of her life, day in day out, on call and on the way to being off call; everywhere she looked, everyone she knew; aquamarine blue, aquamarine blue, aquamarine blue. Too much chocolate isn't good for you. That much aquamarine blue wasn't good for anybody. So now it's black. It goes with everything lately, especially her mood.  
  
Randy has promised to be just a second more than two hundred and thirty five "just a second" 's ago. She patiently plays with phone wire, immersed in the aquamarine glow of the room. Her mother wonders if she wants a set of underwear in that shade, if her "Euro-Doctor" would appreciate her in it. Does he like aquamarine blue too?   
  
She can hear the sounds of an ER on full alert in the static on the other end; Weaver's voice reverberating against all her flock, blood demanding attention, diseases standing by. She's comforted by it, by its familiarity.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Luka?" She asks hopefully.  
  
"Abby?"  
  
She grins, "It's so great to hear you! I thought Randy had left me for dead."  
  
She can hear him smile. "Wouldn't be the first time." He stops. "I haven't missed you a bit."  
  
She smiles, playing along. "Oh no? Found someone else already have we?"  
  
"Oh sure."  
  
"Is it the Room service Guy with the bad timing?"  
  
"You're invited to the wedding."  
  
She's grinning; he makes it that easy. "I'd come but I'd be afraid that my crying might upset the guests."   
  
His voice is still tainted with his smile. "So how's your mother doing?"  
  
"I think she's..." she hesitates and listens to the sounds coming from the kitchen. She isn't screaming, crying or singing. She's making coffee, "...I think she's doing OK Luka."  
  
There's a slight pause and his voice is warm, his tone sincere. "That's great, that's really great Abby."  
  
She smiles. "Yeah, it is."  
  
Her mother calls from the kitchen, and her head juts up. She returns her affections to the phone and laughs, "I think I'm going to have to go –she wants to show me her new juice maker." She pauses and then smiles. "I love you Luka."  
  
There's a silence; a film of sweat building up against her skin.   
  
"So I'll see you in two days Abby? Bye."  
  
She tries to say something else, but the only words that come out are, "OK then...bye Luka."  
  
She stares at the phone as she puts it down, as though it has all the answers. As though it were responsible for all silences, all hesitancies. As though it had stolen the words, held them hostage; a slow but thorough torture.  
  
Surprised at the ease in which they do.  
  
Her mother's grinning at the door. "Abby? Are you going to come and see it or what?"  
  
Shooting one more parting glare at the phone she turns to grin at her mother, the enthusiasm infectious. "Sure, sure, let me see this legendary juice maker of yours."  
  
And she leaves, forgetting, that, juice makers rarely make up for lost words.  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
This is probably one of the most amazing moments in Abby's life.  
  
Her mother's talking about the weather. It almost never rains in Florida, Abby, always so warm, the weather here's beautiful, Abby, don't you think, Abby? And she grins and nods, fork picking up another slice of lasagna, real lasagna, not that microwavable stuff, the real actual home made thing, although she has an inkling that Martha Stewart played a part, and she eats it, and it tastes great.  
  
Her mother's discussing the weather, she's eating lasagna, it's Florida, the weather's great isn't it Abby, she has a tomato stain on her new blouse, and this is one of the most amazing moments in Abby's life.  
  
She thinks that it's true, what they say, it really is the little things.  
  
Her mom's newfound domestic ability makes her want to scale ceilings and perform musicals on her head, instead she smiles and nods, she's right, the weather in Florida is beautiful, it really is, Maggie.  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Frustration, noun: Reality rearing its ugly head.  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Abby sighed, shifting in her sleep, one arm reaching out to drape itself across Luka and maybe pull him closer. She was beginning to feel cold.  
  
With a slightly discontented moan she shifted again, this time to her elbows, eyes managing to open halfway. She quickly surveyed the room. Luka? No Luka? Why no Luka?  
  
She smiled and shook her head at herself, remembering where she was.  
  
Groaning, with one hand attempting to sort out the bird's nest on her head she stumbled out of bed, and tried to remember where exactly the nearest bathroom was located.  
  
It was still slightly misty outside. Way too early. As soon as she'd answered nature's call she was going to go straight back to bed and forget that she was ever alive.  
  
She paused for a minute in the hallway. Listening for any other signs of life in the house. She could hear birds and traffic dimmed by double-glazing. The house remaining asleep, unaffected by the world moving on around it. Just silence.  
  
She was asleep.   
  
With a smile she continued on her way, making an attempt at retaining this peacefulness.  
  
She yelped with pain as her toe came into contact with something big and large and evil and proceeded to mutter curses at it in a charming mixture of Croatian and American. So much for being quiet.  
  
Finding the toilet she quickly observed her reflection in the mirror. Oh boy. Tufts of hair stuck out at random angles on the top of her head, drool lined her chin and two very tired looking eyes glared back at her. Just who did _she_ think she was looking at? Yikes. Thankful that no one else was there to share in this enlightening experience she dragged both hands through her hair, wiped at the drool and avoided any eye contact with herself whatsoever. All for the best.  
  
She couldn't help but feel a little overwhelmed by just how things were turning out. They hadn't had one argument. All china in the house still in one piece.   
  
She contemplated how they could spend the next few days in Florida. Maybe they could take one of those tours. The See All Things Florida for Only Fifteen Dollars Tour Bus, filled with too many celebrity seeking Japanese tourists with digital cameras and irritating kids who don't understand the concept of silence. And she could tell her about her "Euro-Doctor" and they could catch up on the last decade or two of each other's lives. You went to medical school? He didn't say I love you? And You're getting a job where? You know what would look great with aquamarine walls?   
  
Shaking her head, with mild amusement at this mental image, she washed her hands. She could feel her toe begin to swell up and looked down at it. The purple thing at the end of her foot throbbed back at her.  
  
Wincing she opened her mother's medical cabinet, searching for a plaster and some lotion to help ease its misery. Tylenol, Advil, moisturizer after moisturizer, and then she stopped.  
  
Shaking the bottle in her hands and then re-reading and re-reading the label.   
  
"Prozac: See prescription."  
  
Her mouth dried itself out, and she could feel a rush of anger growing from her stomach.   
  
She shook it again. A jangle. A jangle of pills.  
  
She raised both hands to her head and took several steps back.   
  
She mentally began admonishing herself.   
  
You believed her, you believed her, you believed her, more fool you, you believed her.  
  
With a sudden surge of hurt, she stormed out of the room, marched up to Maggie's, bottle clutched in her fist.  
  
She switched her light on, thundering the door open by way of greeting, and then she stood there, exposing the bottle to the sleeping form, as though it were an answer, a reason, a bottle of pills that had the word "Prozac" scratched on the label.  
  
"Maggie?"  
  
She ordered the sleeping form. It shifted in its bed, hand shading eyes from the sudden glare.  
  
"Abby? Abby...?" Eyes opened midway. "...S'everything OK?"  
  
She managed a humorless laugh. "I found this. I think it's yours. And no, it isn't."  
  
And with that, the small bottle began a warp speed path to her mother's bed. It landed with a guilty jingle on Maggie's, more than mildly confused, lap.  
  
Abby didn't wait to see her response.  
  
She'd seen it a million times before anyway.  
  
In an instant she was back in the guest room, jumper being pulled over head, zipping up her jeans, and then she began a grab at all of the things she'd brought with her. Small travel case, her wallet, her presence, and soon all that alluded to her stay was an un-made bed.  
  
Her mother was standing in the hallway when she left, and she moved to pass by her, making no eye contact, avoiding all and everything that she was telling her.  
  
It became lost in the blur of tears that began to distort her vision.  
  
More fool you, you believed her, more fool you.  
  
The front door wasn't locked and Abby didn't bother to shut it as she left.  
  
Her mother was still calling out to her, pleading, pleading her innocence, it was old, it was dated, she didn't realize that it had still been there, she didn't, where was she going, just where did she think she was going, Abby? Abby?!  
  
She silently promised herself that this would be the last time that she would ever hear those words. She figured that her mother should just put this lecture on tape and have Abby replay it once a week, saving them both the travel charges.   
  
With a shake of her head, she raised a hand and signaled a passing taxi.  
  
The driver gave her a look as she read out the hotel address, her mother's screams penetrating the electric windows. She was standing on her porch, in a robe, looking disheveled; just woken up or mania, just woken up or mania?  
  
And then she watched as her reflection faded into a dark smudge in the rearview mirror.  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Frustration, noun: Leaving your ruby slippers in the drawer at home.  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Her bags rested at her feet, and she found herself pacing around them nervously.  
  
"Pick up...pick up...c'mon...pick up."  
  
The tip of her cigarette glowed orange as she inhaled. The nicotine burning through her veins and she was awake.   
  
Her lungs were black and blue from all the abuse.  
  
Life was beginning to arrive to Florida, people in suits frantically checking watches, buying lunches, using mobiles, as she stood in the background of it all, against a phone box, coins in one hand, bags at her feet. She felt strange not being part of it all, part of the rush. She checked her watch again. Nine minutes past seven. She'd been awake since six.   
  
The phone continued to ring out in Chicago. She groaned. "C'mon...pick up...pick up will you...pick up..."  
  
There was a shifting on the other end, and the ring tones stopped. "Hello?"  
  
It was a woman's voice. She sounded tired.   
  
Oh god.  
  
"Um...I-I just- is Carter there?" She stuttered, instantly regretting ever having picked up the phone. Oh god.  
  
There was a rustling, muffled voices and then it was him. "Hello?"  
  
She debated hanging up.   
  
And debated.  
  
"Hello? Anyone there?"  
  
She spoke quickly. "Yeah, yeah, it's uh, it's me."  
  
He paused, and she imagined him torn between confusion and surprise. "Abby?"  
  
She took a lungful of the cigarette, practically choking on the raw tar and nicotine that invaded her lungs. "Hi Carter." And she stopped. "So... who was that?" It was a redundant question. She _knew_ who it was.  
  
"Uh, that was, that was Rena. She stayed over. Everything OK Abby? You sound a little...nervous?"  
  
"Oh Rena." She was aware of how accusing she had sounded and back-tracked. "No. No. I'm fine... It's just –you're not in the middle of something are you?" And then her words began to congeal as she continued, "Because, I mean if you _are_ then I can always call back some other time, it's really not that important, in fact it isn't important at all, I'm sorry I didn't mean to disturb you, so I'll see you...later today?, sorry-"  
  
"Woah slow down." And she could hear shifting in his background static and knew he had moved rooms. He exhaled into the receiver, "See me later today? What happened Abby?"   
  
She paused. What happened Abby? God, if she was telling anyone anything it certainly wasn't going to be the disembodied voice of Carter. "I can tell you about that...on the ride home?" She asked hopefully.  
  
There was a pause and a confused hum. "Ride home?"  
  
She fidgeted with the cigarette, beginning her pace around the discarded baggage. "I really hate to do this to you Carter...But you were the first person that I could think of to ask. No... you're the only person that I could think of to ask," She sighed. "Would it be at all possible for you to meet me at O'Hare airport, in say, five hours?"  
  
He hesitated, voice concerned, "Is this about Maggie?"  
  
"Later, Carter. I just...I really need to get out of here."  
  
The disembodied voice of Carter was smiling, "What did you do Abby, kill your mother?"  
  
She found herself grinning dryly, "No...but I haven't ruled out the possibility. So, can you do that, at one, Chicago time?"  
  
And she sighed with relief as she heard him. "Sure, I'll be there. One o'clock?"  
  
She stubbed the glowing butt out against the phone. "This means a lot to me Carter. I mean it. I owe you one."  
  
He paused, his voice still light. "Anytime Abby. It's nothing; I'll just stick it on your tab. So one it is?"  
  
She hesitated. "Oh and Carter?"  
  
"...Mhhhm?"  
  
"I'd really appreciate it if... you didn't mention any of this to Luka."  
  
Another pause. "Sure. No problems. So I will see you later, OK?"  
  
"...See you later. Thanks again Carter."  
  
She sighed, putting the phone back down against its hook.  
  
She stared at it momentarily, considering making another long distance call, to Luka, claiming that she was currently living out that fairytale ending, and, that, she would see him in however many days when she would be riding back into that misty sunset on the back of a pink unicorn. But the words jammed in her throat, her previous ones forming a blockage. Maybe she should see a doctor about that.  
  
She slung the bag strap across her shoulder, and made her hand available to yet another taxi. And she grinned at herself. Why did Rena make her nervous? Carter must have been mistaken. Why would _Rena_ make _her_ nervous?  
  
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Airports remind her of hospitals.   
  
Everyone, everything, moving, rapidly moving around her, flowing like magma, with purpose, incentive, motive, nothing ever done quietly, voices raising and then getting dimmed by the continual onslaught of new passengers, nameless and faceless, belonging to no where and no one. Going and going and going, accepting that they have little say on how they get there. Leg room, or smoking? Haemo-aid, or blood?  
  
She shifts through it all, anonymous, and she could be in Anywhere, an Anyone. An Abby in the midst of a thousand Abby's.  
  
She stands on her toes. A sea of heads stretches out for miles, in all directions around her.  
  
She could be anyone.  
  
Any other Abby.  
  
And she thinks that it's so easy. It's so easy to forget who you are. It's so easy to get lost.  
  
She sighs, and then spots something.   
  
Duty Free Cigarettes.  
  
Gaining purpose she begins marching towards them...  
  
"Hey!"  
  
"Carter!" And she throws her arms around him, pulling him close, and she can smell the hint of after shave mellowed out by the smell of coffee.   
  
"Hey? Your flight was early?"  
  
His voice is warm against her hair and she doesn't know what to say. How to begin and where to end -will there ever be a full stop at the end of that sentence? Or is it destined to remain open-ended? A coffin refusing to be sealed. The ghost of Maggie with Marley's chains haunting her at every corner. She hasn't considered exorcism. Doesn't believe that things ever truly disappear.  
  
She nods and then sighs gently pulling away from him.  
  
And then they stand and face the other.  
  
Hasty business and boarding calls floating around them, the mass of namelessness drowning her and she isn't sure where she is.  
  
Is anyone, really?  
  
He speaks first. "My car's just outside."  
  
And then she nods, and he begins to find the exit, turning to look back occasionally, ensuring that she's not getting caught up in the chaos of No-one's in suits going off to Anywhere's.  
  
Chicago greets her with a gust of wind and a dusty gray sky. She doesn't feel as though she's ever left. Who wants to walk around in next to nothing anyway?  
  
And then he's taking her luggage, and he's finding his car, and she's following behind him, listening as he catches her up on all the latest from the County soap opera mill, nodding and smiling and throwing the occasional verb in and she knows he notices but he doesn't say anything.  
  
He opens the door for her, and she quietly slides inside, seatbelt on, and then leaning back. Eyes closing almost instantly.  
  
She was beginning to feel the world spin manically on its axis. Round and round and round and she could feel her stomach disprove of this motion.  
  
He slides in next to her, and she can hear him insert the key, the growl of an engine and then a silence, that gets longer and longer and longer.  
  
She sighs, and finally opens her eyes to turn to look at him. The battery's dead? No connection fluid? Why aren't they going anywhere? She distractedly thinks that she's never going to be able to walk to her apartment in these shoes.   
  
He's staring at her. Both eyes silent question marks. Genuinely concerned question marks.  
  
She forces a smile. "I'm OK Carter."  
  
He makes as if believing this, and then says, "You want to talk about it?"  
  
She holds his gaze for more than a beat. "It's..." And then she sighs, turning to look out her passenger window. "She was on Prozac Carter...She promised me she was taking the right medication and I found, an, um, bottle of Prozac." And then she turns to smile humorlessly at him. "I'm an idiot Carter. You don't have to say it. I'm an idiot for ever having believed her. I'm the biggest idiot."   
  
His voice is soft. "And you left it like that?"  
  
"Hmmm? Like what?"  
  
He looks at her pointedly. "With you being the idiot."  
  
She smiles, bemused, "What on earth are you talking about?"  
  
He shrugs gently, looking at her and then the steering wheel and then back at her, "...She loves you Abby. Not every child can say that."  
  
A sigh. "...Don't lecture me."  
  
He pouts stubbornly. "I wasn't."  
  
The silence becomes a third passenger, sitting behind them and discussing the weather at inane length, sitting between them and humming Mozart off-key. Neither moves to quiet it.  
  
He finally draws out a long breath. "...You have to deal with it sometime."   
  
She turns to look at him sharply. "You don't think I'm dealing with her Carter? I deal with her every day of my life; all I ever do is deal with her... She doesn't want for me to deal with her. Oh no, she wants me to make her feel better. She wants me to say, 'I forgive you, mom,' but I can't. I don't forgive her. I don't forgive her for anything."  
  
He raises his shoulders, "So...is that what you told her?"   
  
She shakes her head, as if explaining a crystal clear point for the umpteenth time, "And what would be the point of that? So she could flip the coin over and blame it all on me like she usually does?"  
  
"The point is... the point is she's your mother Abby. She's your only mother," he says this and then looks at her.  
  
She sighs, refusing to meet his gaze. "This isn't the lecture?"  
  
And then he shakes his head, continuing to watch her. "Ok fine Abby. But sooner or later you're going to have to confront this, sooner or later you're going to just have to deal with these feelings of anger and resentment that you have for her. But fine, just handcuff yourself to her for the rest of your life. At least then it'll be you causing all the pain."  
  
And she turns to look at him sharply.  
  
He twists the key and the engine kicks back into life.   
  
Neither of them saying anything as they weaved out of O'Hare Airport. Saying nothing as they got caught up in the one and only place that you can truly sit back and watch the world go by, the Chicago lunch-hour, the third passenger resuming his rendition of the classics. Going over "Ride of the Valkyries" twice as they stole glances at each other, but never more than a glance. And their eyes never met.  
  
* * * * 


End file.
